Big in Brazil… y’all.

[Video]
[5.75]

Nortey Dowuona: All the English language sources I could find for Raí Saia Sodada tell me he makes regional Brazilian music, and he’s enticing this pretty Brazilian girl in a pastiche of American Westerns in the video. But the music itself is this gorgeous arrangement of faux-Western Scene guitars, twinkling and warring ghost synths and deep, plush keyboards surfing upon the sea of swirling bass and lowly kicks hoisting the chipped hi hats and high pitched snares and popping toms, with Rai’s deep, robust voice swinging and sometimes missing through its Portuguese lyrical stylings. It’s just as good, but musically much harder to parse.
[8]

Hazel Southwell: The Pet Shop Boys’ version of Go West, reimagined for the Wild West. Absolutely obsessed with the bit where it turns into a stumbling, bellowed polka like the moment at a supra when the chacha hits.
[8]

Iain Mew: The galloping bass provides an unstoppable sense of forward momentum, and the full-throated drama over cheap beeps is a combo that keeps revealing new pleasures. 
[7]

Samson Savill de Jong: I fear I might be insulting an entire country’s musical culture by saying this (100 million views :O ) but I kept hearing Weird Al’s Brazilian cousin when listening to this. It’s partially the accordion, but it’s mostly the weird electronic plopping sounds during the chorus, and the, for lack of a better word, “bwoip” saxophone(?) sound effect afterwards. I find those musical choices really confusing. Rodada has a really strong and powerful voice, but the song feels like it wants him to be sillier. (The video certainly tends towards lighthearted.) The song almost works, but the tension I heard sonically prevented me from really getting into it, and there’s enough contrast to make it loop back around to working again.
[6]

Juana Giaimo: The western vibes of the beginning of the song are quite intriguing (I’m not sure I can say that I enjoy it, though), but then Raí Saia Rodada starts singing so loud that his voice is the only thing I can pay attention to. I feel this aims to be danceable, but I find it really hard to even move my feet when someone is almost screaming at me.
[3]

Sonya Nicholson: God it sounds exactly like he’s shouting to be heard over the bass in the club.  “Hey this production is a really clean and this is funk bass not dirrrrty bass are you sure-” “What?” “Are you sure you need to-?” “WHAT?” “ARE YOU SURE YOU NEED TO BE SO-” “WHAAAAAAT???” “ARE YOU SURE YOU NEED TO SHOUT?!!”  It wouldn’t be as bad except the intro has some promise, you know it’s gonna build to something, and then — it’s the exact same thing repeated, just louder the second time. 
[4]

John S. Quinn-Puerta: The stylistic choices of the intro are forgotten by the second verse, buried by the overstuffed artifice of the instrumental, itself left unmatched by a lonely vocal track. Raí Saia Rodada is a strong vocalist, but but this track was sorely in need of harmonies to hold my interest. 
[4]

Thomas Inskeep: In the early-mid ’90s, as country music re-exploded in popularity in the U.S. and line dancing clubs became the thing, there was a slew of remixed versions of country hits, such as Brooks & Dunn’s behemoth “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” and Alan Jackson’s “Who’s Cheatin’ Who.” And that’s precisely what Raí Sada Rodada’s “Tapāo No Raba” reminds me of. To my ears, the music that Rodada plays, electronic forró, is at times awfully akin to danceable country music, so this makes perfect sense. This features amongst its elements a honkin’ sax, cheesy drum pads, accordion, and surf guitar, while Rodada belts earnestly as if he’s, I dunno, Luke Combs straining to hit high notes or something. While this wouldn’t pass muster as country music on American radio, this 100% sounds like a Brazilian version of the genre to me.
[6]

*camera flash* If IU wasn’t a celebrity, would we be so nice to she?

[Video]
[5.50]

Crystal Leww: IU has been making songs that are very specific (and somewhat meta) musings on her life for over half a decade now at this point, and production wise, they’ve sounded like older things during this  stretch — “Blueming” belongs in the late ’90s, “Bbibbi” felt like coffeehouse pop of the ’00s, and “Palette” even name dropped Corrine Bailey Rae, for god’s sake. “Celebrity” feels like the natural progression of that trend — Korea’s biggest soloist doing a song called “Celebrity” is extremely on the nose. This would feel like a song that plays at the end of like The Princess Diaries if it weren’t for that future bass break. Both are things that were once popular and no longer are, but you know what? That’s true star power — to be making music that doesn’t necessarily push the boundaries but still sounds fresh. I’ve pressed repeat on this many times this winter because it just just so damn charming.
[8]

Joshua Lu: Pop star known for their singer-songwriter tendencies incorporates dated sonics for their comeback single and is met with immense, record-breaking success — this may very well be IU’s “Shape of You,” but with a bit less tropical house and more Chainsmokers Lite production. At least her voice is pretty.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: IU draws out a bit of charm, but this song is cheesy, dated and I’m sure it would be pilloried if it had been Generic Production Duo ft. Generic Singer. Charm only goes so far to mitigate against fluff and bilge.
[4]

Austin Nguyen: The bass drop comes out of left field, as does that synth razor around 0:21, but “you’re a star painted with a left hand” is the lyrical equivalent of a boop on the nose: a dumb endearing tease you can’t help but receive with a smile. Even if the bridge thins out to guitar balladry, the whole premise, really, feels like someone took the pseudo-stan comments friends leave each other under Instagram photos pro forma and made it more profound (alternatively: the signature section of a yearbook with the HAGS and HATS filtered out). I feel warm inside.
[6]

Juana Giaimo: We’ve all heard many encouraging songs about how being odd makes you beautiful. Most times, I find them too artificial and really hard to connect with. But on “Celebrity”, IU creates a sweet intimacy where I can see myself reflected in the person she describes. “Through the earphones, the music is all minor,” she sings in the first verse as her voice get lower, and in the pre-chorus and chorus, her voice starts getting more brighter with her complimentary words (my favorite line is “you’re star painted with a left hand”). The drop is upbeat, but not too upbeat to seem fake or out of place — it’s still delicate and slightly vulnerable as the rest of the song. 
[8]

Kayla Beardslee: The verse and prechorus melodies are honey-sweet, and IU’s voice is expressive, but this is the kind of song that lives and dies by its drop. Unfortunately, this drop sounds awful. If it’s any consolation, I like literally every single other song on her new album more!
[3]

Thomas Inskeep: Her voice is all too twee, and the production on this is all too “let’s try everything that’s worked in the last 5 years of pop,” which adds up to an all too big fat nothing. Actively annoying.
[1]

Nortey Dowuona: The fact of the matter is that shaky, spider silk synths melted over reggaeton seashell drums; stumbling bass chugs and crowing horn synths; chopped vocal stir fry over a Chainsmokers Trapping Like T.I. Pack; then shifting to slender guitar shakes with the lilting voice of IU just scans as well constructed mall pop to my Ghanaian brain that happens to have Korean lyrics. One of the things that kinda put me off K-Pop when I first started reviewing it was that it at first resembled that same mall pop I heard on Beats 1 or a solid recreation of R&B trap chart records folx like Anne-Marie, Tink or Trevor Jackson were already making. And now that I’m listening to this, that impression hasn’t changed. Especially since it’s structured and produced like English made mall pop. If not for the different language, I’d be unable to tell.
[7]

Rachel Saywitz: There’s always been a humbling quality to IU’s music, despite her being one of Korea’s most (one might argue the most) popular and recognizable artists. Even as she shifted from orchestral spectacles (produced by LOEN Entertainment’s highly versatile Lee Min-Soo) to her own minimal, self-written compositions, the childlike curiosity of her soft-spun lyrics and melodies never faded. “Celebrity” takes her self-effacing attitude to a different level, pointing out the smallest and most precious joy of fame and directing it towards an unsuspecting friend. With a dramatic flair of accented synths, she implores them to recognize that perfection means nothing in the face of love: “Can’t you see how beautiful / a uniqueness can be?” The song’s instrumental breakdown is a little hokey, but its provided a wholesome opportunity for fans and even other celebrities to show off their own uniqueness; IU led the charge herself on Instagram, posting bare-faced photos of her doing everyday activities that aren’t tied to the act of being famous. To be true, there is a certain privilege in claiming similarities between fame and normalcy, but IU doesn’t see any point in comparing the two. She is not highlighting the essence of overall celebrity, but instead capturing the affectionate view one might have of another — the “celebrity” of someone’s heart. 
[8]

Alfred Soto: The production crunches abetting an affected sweetness reminds me of Ariana Grande’s recent work, and here’s a rare example of my wishing I knew the sung language in case I missed a thing. As it stands, “Celebrity” is innocuous fun.
[6]

Emphasis on “little”…

[Video]
[3.45]

Iain Mew: James Bay’s “Hold Back the River” is six years old but feels like a lifetime ago. That makes it quite impressive that Tom Grennan started off doing that but has managed to transition to something that recognisably has the same roots but fits seamlessly into Radio 1’s playlist in 2021. To call this maximalist sells short the way it finds whole new ways of sounding huge at every turn. The problem is that the starting point was something designed to build to bellowing emotion and the arrangement removes any build, or indeed any chance for even a moment’s rest. Dynamics and scale all fall away as he just keeps going and going, exits mercilessly blocked.
[2]

Alfred Soto: Put Years & Years, Billie Eilish, and OneRepublic in a blender and this goo might emerge. Cross-platform appeal!
[1]

Harlan Talib Ockey: Ed Sheeran + Lewis Capaldi + Shawn Mendes = whatever this is. Even a Frankenstein metaphor would be too original.
[4]

Samson Savill de Jong: Oh hey, Lewis Capaldi changed his name and literally nothing else. Not sure why, but good for him I guess.
[4]

Nortey Dowuona: I know what you’re doing, Tom. You’re a year older than me. You are skidding over shaky, thin guitars, popping pianos and flat Elevator Drive Munchies drums. You’re wailing about the deep end and a little bit of love from your ex. Unfortunately I can’t give you a single bite — not even the little left of the crumbs for that crowd chant pre chorus — ’cause Natalie Merchant took it. Also, the strings are great but it’s not 2012 anymore.
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: He sounds like a braying goat — Tom, why are you shouting at me? — over an Imagine Dragons production, and it’s produced to sound very, obnoxiously loud. 
[0]

Katherine St Asaph: Like a dude singing Kelly Clarkson’s “What Doesn’t Kill You (Stronger)” as pisstake karaoke, attempting to mock quirky female vocal stylings.
[0]

Juana Giaimo: I always feel bad when I say I don’t like someone’s voice because it’s one of the most personal instruments, but I feel this would a lot better if Tom Grennan didn’t try so hard to show he has feelings. Throughout the whole song his voice trembles, gets hoarse, louder and more melodramatic to the point I can barely listen to the synthpop track behind which is actually quite nice!
[4]

Scott Mildenhall: Finally, a UK Eurovision entry that will challenge. It’s a fine representation of the kind of thing the country is keen to export: a flat-out pop song — with hymnal melodies, hints of the orchestral and arms around the world — alleging an edge with its little bit of gruff. Yes, its transparent desperation moves it into the territory of pastiche, but with just three minutes on stage, it’s wise to heighten things. Grennan’s overwrought understatement is uplifting by sheer will; sometimes more is more. Europe might well show him a lot — no, hang on, it’s James Newman again isn’t it.
[8]

Hazel Southwell: Sometimes when you seen an artist’s name you can already immediately imagine what the track is gonna sound like. This is one of those male solo artists who creates the illusion of authenticity by having a fundamentally unpleasant singing voice while delivering an Ellie Goulding track with less personality and gusto than she would. If it gets played everywhere I’ll probably end up liking it more than I’m comfortable with.
[4]

Aaron Bergstrom: Imagine my surprise upon learning that there’s a song called “Little Bit of Love” climbing the UK singles charts in March 2021 and somehow it’s not the one from the Drag Race finale. Instead, it’s a serviceable addition to a growing fake genre I’ll call beach-hostel-core: songs that sound pretty good while you’re drinking a Mexican beer in a threadbare hammock… and in absolutely no other circumstance. TSJ has not been kind to other classics of the genre. Maybe this is just my cabin fever talking, but I don’t hate it.
[5]

Narrowly edging out Cookiie Kawaii as being the shortest song we’ve ever covered…

[Video]
[4.14]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Cursed, terse, 17-year-old Gen-Z Tik Tok content just as teeth-rottingly sugary and ego-shatteringly destructive as Charli XCX or 100 gecs at their hyper-pop peaks. 
[8]

Jessica Doyle: Okay, “Teeth!” > “Let Go” > “SugarCrash!” And that I listened to “SugarCrash!” and ended up spending 45 minutes on ElyOtto’s Soundcloud page should tell you something in and of itself. I don’t know whether his apparent guilelessness is inadvertent, something he’s going to be embarrassed by when he’s 19, or carefully cultivated — based on the slight turn towards determination in the last verse of “SugarCrash!” I think it might be the latter, that he wants to stay the kind of person who puts multiple languages’ worth of loving greetings on said Soundcloud page, and saves his greatest venom for people who hurt his friends. In short: he’s creative, and adorable, and apparently sees no contradiction between the two. PROTECC. Or whatever the kids say these days.
[6]

Jeffrey Brister: There’s nothing particularly novel here (mostly just sounds like a dollar store Charli XCX track), and it’s over before anything has a chance to either settle or develop. It’s honestly barely a sketch, just a rough draft given a few frills and a mixdown so it wouldn’t feel too much like a tossed-off goof masquerading as a song.
[2]

Samson Savill de Jong: How can a song like this sound formulaic? All the tropes are here; blasted bass, distorted vocals, depressed lyrics, TikTok length. I’ve been in to, or at least admired, a lot of hyperpop because of the experimentation and boundary pushing, but this is already showing that no genre can escape its own cliches. If you don’t like any hyperpop, this’ll do nothing to convince you, and if you do, go and listen to that instead.
[1]

Thomas Inskeep: Chipmunk’d vocals and a happy hardcore drum pattern do not a song make. God, hyperpop sucks.
[0]

Scott Mildenhall: “SugarCrash!” as a song isn’t all that confusing — it has a relatively conventional structure and even a neat internal explanation for its brevity (nothing you can write being able to make you feel good is a great excuse for stopping halfway). As punctuation for even shorter videos of sudden happenings, though, it is baffling. Where is the juxtaposition, the change in mood, volume, pace? Unfortunately it seems The Youth of Today have finally run out of ideas, because “SugarCrash!” feels well out of place. Sorry TikTok, you’ve had your moment; time to take this song and your audience to an exciting new app called the radio.
[5]

Nortey Dowuona: Sliding hi hats bring in bass lumps with ducking synths as a syrupy shriek dances on the sinking, waterlogged drums, the drake warbles hovering like dark rain clouds.
[3]

Austin Nguyen: “Bath” should really be “nap” — I, for one, have not taken a full-on relaxation bath since I was, like, 7, and I doubt students, high school or otherwise, are willing to go through the effort of getting the right temperature, filling the tub, and finding a (I don’t know) Lush bath bomb to put in when they could set the alarm clock on their phone, oversleep on the couch and feel equally fucked on time. It’s a small detail, but that’s all you have — the car alarm beeps, sword unsheathing on “cut my fucking brain in half,” random dog barks — in a song that runs under 1:20 and feels too burnt-out and “shitty” to actually crash or shatter or implode. Predictably, it’s the Shinji Ikari-certified verse that went viral on TikTok, but the short burst of hope at the end flashes by just as brightly.
[6]

Andrew Karpan: Juice WRLD in the key of 100 gecs, I buy it; a moody, melancholy yell into the living room, the sound effects evoke stuffy saturday mornings watching slashers. And at the end, there’s even hope, can a song this short even have a coda? It’s the sound of having the rest of your life ahead of you or maybe just the memory of that.
[7]

Alex Clifton: Genuinely had to look this up because I thought “wait, isn’t this just the entirety of that one 100 gecs song but a little different?” and no, this is an entirely different song. I hate the criticism of “all this new pop sounds the same,” but I can’t differentiate this from any of the other hyperpop songs I’ve heard. I’m definitely too old for this shit.
[2]

Aaron Bergstrom: I lost track, how many gecs are we up to now?
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: According to the artist, “this was originally a short soundfont test I made.” Back in my day people’s soundfont tests would be, like, redoing “Megalovania” with the Tetris Attack soundfont (note: does not actually exist, yet), and they would still produce more complete songs than this.
[3]

Alfred Soto: “A soundfont” it’s called.
[3]

Taylor Alatorre: Remember all those tiresome thinkpieces written about PC Music back in 2014? Remember when “thinkpiece” was a word people used? Well, now none of that matters and the genre that A. G. Cook birthed and SOPHIE transcended has been distilled into “I’m just a kid and life is a nightmare.” And that’s good! Every musical wave needs its Simple Plans and Good Charlottes so that its impact is remembered by people besides strung-out pop critics. For boundary-breaking and convention-flouting artists to exist, there have to be artists who treat the conventions like standardized test instructions. Many such songs are engineered for fleeting viral stardom, but it’s not too often that the algorithm spits out a genre exercise as guilelessly satisfying as “SugarCrash!”. My only complaint? It’s too long — shave off the first 20 seconds of stage-setting ambience and you’ve got a one minute perfect loop, which is the way this was meant to be consumed.
[8]

Tastes like honey, sounds like…?

[Video]
[7.00]

Jeffrey Brister: Bit of 80’s jangle, bit of Dum Dum Girls, bit of Best Coast, all coasting by pleasantly. More than a little nondescript, but a well-executed bit of guitar rock in 2021 never fails to make me pay attention to who’s making it.
[7]

Leah Isobel: “You make me feel like a chiiiild,” Angee Sentana sings over jangly guitars and sunny harmonies. In the context of the lyrics, it reads like a lovestruck confession, but she delivers it with a slight smirk that implies something more sarcastic. Once that tension enters the song, you hear it everywhere — in the choruses that land somewhere between fawning and backhanded, in the deadpan vocal sighs that open the song, in the stormy guitar breaks that cut in between the verses, and in the bridge’s unresolved question “Do you still feel the same?” But then the song hits a key change for one last chorus before rocketing into a windswept outro, powered by Sentana’s final line: “I would hate to see you go.” Grrrl Gang’s storytelling is graceful and natural; of course, it helps that the hooks are so sticky.
[8]

Nortey Dowuona: A fuzzy, sizzling blanket of a song. Lovin’ this.
[7]

Andrew Karpan: In their first new single after signing to a hip London label, it’s nice to see this charmingly intense band from Yogyakarta shed twee angst for shredding angst, carefully moving their RIYL-reference point away from Belle & Sebastian and Beach Bunny and closer to, say, Hop Along. It’s a good move, as it comes with a particularly solid guitar solo, which evokes, at times, either a frustrated bee hive or, maybe, something more 90s (possibly the Breeders?).
[6]

Vikram Joseph: Jangly indie-pop might not exactly be cool in 2021, but there are plenty of bands still ploughing that furrow (there’s basically a whole festival dedicated to it), and it’s a difficult field to set yourself apart in. In recent times, Alvvays notably succeeded in doing so with a blown-out sound and a witty, deeply empathetic skewering of millennial angst; “Honey Baby” is like an Alvvays song engineered in a lab, almost the real thing but with an uncanny valley vibe that it can’t quite escape, despite a slightly desperate late key change. It’s pretty likeable nonetheless, and the guitar riff and the closing instrumental section are decent invocations of 90s indie rock miscellany, but in the end this reminds me most of Yuck, a band that sounded like all their heroes at once without ever quite finding an identity to call their own. Plenty of time for Grrrl Gang to do so, though.
[6]

Samson Savill de Jong: I sometimes feel like I compare one band to another too readily, it’s a bit of a music writer crutch for when you’ve not got anything actually insightful to say. Anyway, Grrrl Gang reminds me a lot of Pale Waves, especially when they start making honey based comparisons in the chorus. It’s not an entirely fair comparison — they obviously aren’t trying to get the goth aesthetic going, and musically there’s a bit more experimentation in here, especially towards the end of the song — but I do mean it as a compliment. They pull of the delicate pop balance of sounding upbeat without sounding twee, and having a hint of sadness without sounding pretentious or like an insufferable teenager.
[8]

Oliver Maier: As good as any new jangle pop you’re likely to hear; smart, simple, a little staid. Imagine “There She Goes” if it felt a bit listless, like it wasn’t written about a real person. The wah-wah guitar fills in enough colour to compensate.
[7]

Alfred Soto: What are those things? Right — guitars. Crunchy and chewy on a vaguely nutritious song that doesn’t know what to do with them except as aural tags.
[5]

Taylor Alatorre: The playing starts off sounding overly restrained, the pacing too cautious, as if they don’t want to jeopardize their goal of planting as many ’90s band names as possible into some dorky American blogger’s head. But the switch suddenly flips when they get to the line “everything that he isn’t,” which, though a minor cliché on its own, provides a diegetic reason for all that restraint. It’s not just about a new relationship, but one formed in the wreckage of a just-ended one, which casts a faint shadow over even the shimmeriest of melodies here. If nothing else, the turbulent outro makes clear that Grrrl Gang have ambitions beyond serving as an indie pop museum piece.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: What “Honey Baby” lacks in energy — and it does, at least until the last minute — it makes up with nostalgic wholesomeness. It sounds like all the Vitamin D you didn’t get last year, delivered slow-release to not overwhelm.
[7]

Aaron Bergstrom: Thirty years ago, the nascent genre of alternative rock reached a fork in the road. While the history books have designated 1991 as The Year That Grunge Broke, it wasn’t as obvious at the time. Nevermind actually placed third in Spin‘s Album of the Year rankings, behind Teenage Fanclub’s Bandwagonesque and REM’s Out Of Time, and it’s not hard to imagine an alternate timeline where jangly, power pop-inflected college rock became the ascendent sub-genre. Instead, we got decades of watered down sludge-rock, and now songs like “Honey, Baby” hit like recovered memories from a past that never happened: an update on Mazzy Star that refuses to fade into anything, a swirl of bright guitars and group harmonies balancing lyrics about sorrow and madness, and a key change that sounds like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. The dream of the 90s is alive in Yogyakarta.
[9]

Imagine Dragons still can only imagine getting a not-bad score on TSJ for now.

[Video]
[2.64]

Thomas Inskeep: Lighters-up music for Karens across the land.
[1]

Iain Mew: Less a song than a collection of sketches for potential remixes and arrangements, from churchy echo to Queen-via-Muse harmonics to yacht-rock-via-Vampire Weekend. It’s a neat fit for the concept at least; they’re so willing to follow that they don’t really have any idea of their own where to go.
[5]

Katie Gill: The most memorable part of this absolute nonentity of a song is that the music video honestly expects us to believe that someone’s favorite band is Imagine Dragons.
[4]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: “I’ll follow you down to your deepest low.” Mayhaps this is subliminal messaging being incepted into the minds of indifferent fans? 
[2]

Nortey Dowuona: Hey, you know that dragons are hoarders by nature, right? Can’t we just give Dan Reynolds a massive pile of Amazon money and hide him back in Salt Lake City? And take a gold ingot to that cave whenever he decides to rain thunderous 3-D drums and flat synths over screaming cities? Please!
[3]

Andrew Karpan: The croaking, cartoonish harmonies that rattle toward the end of the record are among some of the most evil sounds I have heard so far in my small life, a sound that spells Dantean doom. To call a track titled “Follow You” creepy feels besides the point: this is the sound of creepiness itself, a funhouse mirror of noise whose mild shocks are the most horrifying.
[2]

Samson Savill de Jong: Imagine Dragons have become the Eminem of the indie rock world in recent years, once popular and talented and now the butt of jokes from the internet, possibly treated harsher than others because of the nagging sense that they used to be good. It gives me no pleasure to report that with “Follow You,” Imagine Dragons have slipped even further in to the mire. The song sounds like it’s about nothing, it uses the repeating word gimmick that went out of style 15 years ago, there’s absolutely nothing inventive or interesting in it. This covers the same ground as “Fix You,” but that song sounded like a dude who didn’t really know how to help but wanted to give it his best go. This song sounds like empty triumphalism, with no thought put into how any of the sounds are meant to relate to each other. When he says he’ll always be around, it feels like a threat, both to the girl and to us. Irredeemably bad.
[0]

Alfred Soto: Who says rock is dead? So long as the Dragons keep imagining these pastel-colored incursions into pre-COVID arena EDM, magazines will have plenty of cover story fodder.
[3]

Taylor Alatorre: I think it’s great that Dan Reynolds has been able to patch things up with his wife. And there is something to admire in his willingness to forgo the inevitable Stripped Down Piano Ballad and instead declare his love for her in a big, thumping Imagine Dragons song. But the admiration pretty much ends there. 
[3]

Katherine St Asaph: Imagine Wife Guys Dragons is certainly sounding pleasant these days. Really! The last few chimes even sound like they could segue into “Borderline.”
[5]

Vikram Joseph: Coming in over a cheesy organ line, Dan Reynolds’ vocals barge in like the sonic equivalent of the Big Bird door gif, so bad that they cross over into hilarity. Even if she weren’t having “heart attacks every night” — which to be fair sounds quite disruptive — it would be hard for the subject of this well-meaning, utterly hideous song to take it seriously. (The heart attack line is, with comic acuity that would be enviable were it intentional, delivered in the exact same cadence as the last lines in the verses of “We Didn’t Start The Fire”: “heart attacks every night, OH YOU KNOW IT’S NOT RIGHT!”). There’s also a bit after the second chorus where our friend makes a sound like he’s gargling socks for fully 15 seconds. The song, as you’d expect, is lumbering synth-rock of absolutely no consequence, but Reynolds’ performance launches it into the realms of the groundbreakingly terrible.
[1]

• Claire Biddles interviewed Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart for The Wire.
• Nortey Dowuona released a new song: listen to “9-Homebody” by Samfl3 here.

From one we like…

[Video][Website]
[6.67]

Scott Mildenhall: It’s so easy to be won over by the boldness of David Balfe. A more arresting opening couplet than “Birthday”‘s will be hard to find, and from there on in he once more digs deep; arranging sense out of the derangement of the senses. This time the personal is much more explicitly political, and that extra facet keeps things extremely fresh. From the dizzying slideshow of quotes and statistics playing behind him as he performed this on RTÉ, to the inspiredly dissonant sample and striking Instagram descriptions, every bit is thoroughly felt, thought, understood and appreciated, and the result is something vital.
[9]

Alfred Soto: A pretty string section and other elements — disembodied vocal, guitar playing Motown rhythm licks — enrich this analysand’s monologue. The trouble is with David Balfe, whose talk-singing isn’t compelling on its own.
[5]

Juana Giaimo: Songs like this make me wonder about language in music because, as a non-native English speaker, I can only grasp the nostalgia of “Birthday / The Pain” when I read the lyrics. I enjoy the contrast of the festive music with the hushed, cold vocals, but it loses its power when there are no changes throughout almost six minutes, and I get easily lost in the sounds when I can barely understand what he is saying.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Dance is the best escape, the way the heart runs from hurt too hard to put into words. Even when the words are good, like they are here, I feel the escape more than the pain, but the two together are a compelling package.
[8]

Samson Savill de Jong: It’s always hard to follow up something like “I Have a Love” because part of what makes a song like that so impactful is that it sounded utterly unique, and another song by the same artist cannot have the same freshness. That being said, David Balfe has done as well as he possibly could, and this is still captivating. The production is fantastic, and the song sucks you in just as well as the previous one. There’s less poetry in the lyrics than last time; here David really is just telling a story set to music, and consequently I don’t think it touches the same impossible heights. Though there’s plenty of emotion here, it’s not particularly subtle. Still, there’s lots more room for songs of this quality in the world, and this still hits the mark.
[8]

Nortey Dowuona: Loping guitars and crushed drums lay behind a svelte synth track and a few trumpet stabs, when suddenly a low, raspy voice creaks out bitterness, cynicism and contempt for the world they inhabit. Still crackling and fizzing as the sweetness below the voice buoys them, all launch into a flighty, irresponsible spiral with lunging pianos and trumpet line drives; a chirping voice spinning around. Then the piano hops back in, alone and afraid, as a few friends jostle and leap, unaware of their sudden erasure.
[5]

Welcome to TSJ+, home of songs that require a subscription to understand…

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[3.71]

Anna Katrina Lockwood: A novelty remix of a novelty hit, “Agatha All Along (Trap Remix)” is a practically recursive text. The purpose of this remix is totally undisguised, and it does seem to have been executed competently, if unimaginatively. Of course, the source material is such a joy it would take a much heavier hand than Mr. Philpot’s to destroy — there’s truly scarcely a detectable rework here aside from the trap beat absolutely railroaded through the original. It seems kind of unnecessary — but I did giggle at it on first listen, and who’s to say there’s anything in this life more necessary than a moment of joy? 
[5]

Rachel Saywitz: A bastardization of the original, which effortlessly spun up a theme song that sounds so familiar, it’s hard to remember that it wasn’t soundtracking any show from the 50s. Fading out the track’s spooky, humorous vocals in favor of a worn-out trap beat effectively mutes the high camp of it once had. 
[0]

Katie Gill: What are mediocre trap mixes if not memes persevering?
[5]

Alfred Soto: Is this performance supposed to offend me? Before answering the question, let’s figure out who this song — who this remix — is for.
[3]

Katherine St Asaph: I cannot score this song until The Discourse makes up its fucking mind about whether it is morally acceptable to enjoy WandaVision.
[5]

David Moore: Ah, WandaVision discourse! Another good one dropped a few hours ago (take, that is, not remix). I liked the first three eps before exposition ground everything to a halt, plus the spot-on Malcolm in the Middle parody — you can tell they had no feel or inclination for multi-cam, such a shame. As for psychological torture/abuse implications of having mind control superpowers, try Jessica Jones season 1; for uncanny exploration of superhero grief punctuated by gratuitous explosions, try Jessica Jones season 2; for examining the potential and limitations of repair of harm for… you know, superhero shit, try Jessica Jones season 3. This theme song is probably the weakest of the consistently good (and sometimes pretty great) WV theme songs by the Frozen, etc. duo (I recently learned that Kristen Anderson-Lopez is a commercial jingle savant whose mentor wrote the iconic Klondike and Bounty paper towel jingles — and it shows!), not least because it’s soundtracking a “reveal to nowhere,” introducing a twist that changes nothing about the show and ultimately makes it a little worse, if only for throwing yet another purple-fire-power-blaster into the sky for twenty minutes. But I’m not going to dock the show too many points for being what it can’t help itself but to be, or the songs any points at all for being insubstantial or cloying, since that’s also why they’re good. Lucky for me, this specific trap remix is bad as music before even getting to a whole other swarm of contextual social stuff around memes and remix and internet culture and whatever else that I am confident other people can and will expound on better than I probably could. (And hey, while I’m doing my own expounding, a quick recommendation to also go back to Agent Carter, the actual best MCU show about a woman processing the apparent death of their superhero partner by burying herself in weird work. Comes with a funny Jarvis of its own and adheres with more fidelity to its chosen genre send-up — and, not for nothing, it’s a hoot.)
[2]

Nortey Dowuona: Trippin on Marvel like trippin on gumStop wasting your money and burning your tongueWhile kicking your toms off and downing your ZoloftThe fillings feel so soft as your throat goes numbY’all should’ve known it was her from the beginning Bring out Mephisto he’ll outshine VisionThe Devil is a liar who kills your neighborhood pigeonsNo time to go piss in Taylor Sloane’s kitchenKathryn and being the villain go together like broachesPinned on cravats worn by well-to-do roachesSo obvious it was bigger than Jaxon And more out there than Iceman killing TaxxonsI ain’t even tapped in but I knew itThe most of y’all weren’t Todd HewittStop mytholgizing, say screw it and singIT WAS AGATHA ALL ALONG
[6]

And now, a blast of pre-Friday FOMO.

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[5.57]

Leah Isobel: The arpeggiators and harmonies are hazy and heatsick like mid-August.  Syd wanders through in a daze, leveling self-loathing, disappointment,  despair, and anger into one flat, dry surface; a high chime cuts through  like water, but by the end of the song she still drifts away  unquenched.
[7]

Nortey Dowuona: Lilting, tear away synths and chugging synth butter bass lies over limp, flat drums as Syd whispers sweet nothings inside a few ears. Why even attempt to miss you, when you’ll just come around again in a couple months? More cascading vocals slide into the chorus but it’s too little, too late.
[4]

Alfred Soto: Languorous like peak Tinashe or Kelani, but their fellow mononym isn’t as shrewd a songwriter and the scratchy voice doesn’t compel on its own.
[4]

Frank Falisi: The temptation to lob description at sound is a happy impossible project. We’ve invented a few different languages for it, but even at their best, these tongues miss what sounds most. I wouldn’t want it another way; I like the way sounds articulate themselves best. Maybe one alternative theory of sound describing moves away from metaphorizing (this is that) and towards instead catalyzing it: what’s the temperature? If a song sits or holds, is it touchable? Is want hot and kiss-off cold? Syd’s “Missing Out” arpeggiates the thing the realest ones do, moving through temperate zones and back, that dull dumbing ache you get from holding onto ice too long. Holding on is missing out, maybe; the temperature is just the way a body is in a moment.
[7]

Juana Giaimo: “Missing Out” wouldn’t be much without the main keyboard melody. When it’s combined with the rather simple chorus vocal, it creates an airy feeling that is also present in the more stripped verses. But, when the song finishes after the second chorus, I feel it was cut too short (even though it’s four minutes long) and that it feels just as fleeting as the relationship in the lyrics.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: This is arresting to listen to if only because the verses conjure up the memory of playing on one of those early 80s handheld games Casio used to sell. The song’s too underwritten to break out of its own (immaculate, admittedly) haze and my lasting impression is that Syd may have picked the vocal take where she forgot to have a drink of water beforehand.
[4]

Austin Nguyen: It’s all in the shift: from verse to chorus, droning-synth disconsolation makes way for tinkling arpeggiated stars; and self-abnegating pining (“I know I didn’t deserve it, didn’t deserve nothing”), even in the way Syd’s voice quivers and lingers on ending words, somehow finds its way to subtweeting Instagram-caption revenge (“Bet you want me now”), casual yet assertive. Consider the pre-chorus the transitory phase of rationalized resignation, mulling over each “should’ve seen it coming,” and “Missing Out” becomes a triptych of a break-up in miniature. Or, viewed from another angle, a wrenching exercise in self-denial.
[7]